When someone comes up to me and asks me what I am doing (when I'm photographing something), I just say, I making a photograph. Then they ask why? My answer is - because I like photography. You'd think people would realize this, but most truly don't think about making art. Art is dead to most people. Don't forget that most people's idea of what photography is, is sunsets, calendars, and celebrities, not street photography.
I agree wholeheartedly with jsrockit and DNR.
It appears that as the human knowledge base expands exponentially on a daily basis, the vast majority of humans (in developed and/or western cultures) become progressively more ignorant, uninformed, capable of cogent thought and downright infantile.
In spite of the vast storehouse of cultural and scientific knowledge that humans have literally at their fingertips (thanks to laptops and the world wide web), we are as a whole (with notable exceptions) regressing intellectually. The bulk of this failure can be laid squarely on the doorstep of the education system in western nations which has abandoned its duty to teach people
how to think in favor of teaching them
what to think.
However: The failure does not begin and end with the world of academia. It extends to the failure of the individual to seek out knowledge and to engage in learning - and deductive reasoning - of their own volition for no monetary compensation or career advancement but simply for the purpose of enriching themselves intellectually and elevating their quality of life. Instead, the vast majority of people in the west settle for the table scraps tossed to them by the world of academia. Clearly, any person with a functioning mind deserves better.
In terms of photography, we see the result of this settling reflected in the ignorance and paranoia of the general public regarding photography in general and street photography in particular that approaches the level of dark ages superstition.
When I look at the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand and Vivian Maier, I thank God that we have these permanent visual records of their bygone eras. The street photographs made today will one day decades down the road be regarded likewise, whether the photographer who made them was "famous" or lived, photographed and died in obscurity.
We cannot let the ignorance, paranoia and superstition of the small minded deter us from providing posterity with a visual record of our current era, which is - for better or worse - a time of transformation for all of us.
Photography - documentary and street photography in particular - are things that matter. This is important and significant work. We must not let the paranoia and prejudices of the unthinking public deter our work. Someone has got to do it.
JMHO.
